Startup Turns London’s Empty Restaurant Tables Into Co-Working Desks

With an ongoing trend of a mobile workforce that is less and less spatially bound, the demand for co-working space continues to grow. London-based startup AndCo enables restaurants and cafés to rent out tables as workspaces during the day.

There’s now an alternative to the lonesome kitchen table, the patchy coffee shop or the pricey co-working desk: AndCo. Founded in London, the online platform works with restaurants and cafés for members to work in. Surely, cafés as working spaces are no novelty, yet members are spared the felt obligation to order one beverage after another to justify their lengthy stays. Members just have to book their ‘hot-table’ upon arrival and are able to choose from a variety of locations depending on location, date and vibe.

The app aims at matching local gastronomy — that tends to struggle from low daytime demands — with the growing demands of individuals towards a flexible working environment. Unlike the traditional idea of co-working spaces that bring together like-minded individuals under one roof often charging high fees for a desk, the app bills £20/month (with the first month free) to grant its users unlimited access to designated locations, including speedy Wi-Fi and discounts on the menu in certain locations.

City Hawk in Central London — one of AndCo’s locations

With mass urbanization patterns across the world, inner city space continues to become scarcer and more expensive. The frontier of urban development is in hybrid space that can change function based on demand and time of the day.

AndCo’s idea is similar to that of New York and San Francisco-based Spacious, an app that turns restaurants that are closed during the day into co-working spaces. Both companies offer a glimpse of the future of urban space, and that is what makes them more than just two ordinary co-working platforms.

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